Miranda Gardener- Demigod

It was suppose to be a good walk. A relaxing walk. In the forest to clear her mind, to make her happy. To get her mind off of things.

They didn't know Miranda could never be happy alone, in the forest. Tears dropped off her face, the plants around her feet screamed in pain as they withered away. The trees seemed to bend with age the leaves crackling like a fire, choking and dying.

Her powers stopped working correctly when she was alone. No more strawberries growing, no more flowers blooming, no more rains of petals and cherry blossomed air. When she was alone Roses lost their colors, vines died and snapped, animals retreated.

When she was alone she could here the screams, the pain, explosions.

When she was alone she remembered nothing would ever be the same.

She remembered good friends dropping to the ground and not getting up. She remembered looking back and seeing camp go up in flames. She remembered Will's arms pulling her back restraining her. She could feel him pulling her with the others. Following Percy Jackson. Following him away. Leaving everyone...

to die.

The dead leaves swirled around her feet in an invisible wind. The haunting voices of the memory surging back to her. Tears drops hit the dead ground soaking into the dirt.

"Come on! Stop being such a slow poke!"

"Miranda! Slow down! I can only run so fast!"

She saw herself bouncing through the trees flinging her arms out and the forest exploded with her touch blooming with new energy. Her other self laughed as a long ago face appeared through the plants wrapping two arms around her laughing the breeze.

"Gotcha!" Connor yelled, swinging her around. "And I'm never letting go!"

They faded the wisps of her laughter extinguished in the air. Why did you let go Connor? Why did you leave?

"Travis!" Her other self screamed running through the trees sobbing into his T-shirt. "Where is he? Where are they?"

He looked down at her wet trails on his cheeks. And shook his head. Her heart burst.

The memory bubbled popping away with her sobs.

She fell to her knees everything shook and withered. Brown leaves fell from the sky. The tree moaned and grounded.

So many were gone. So many were lost.

Travis had comforted her. But he couldn't heal the gaping hole her heart. The hole left by the only guy she loved, Connor.

Katie came back, but she didn't really come back. She wasn't the same as before. She didn't magically make everything better again.

She made it the the new camp, she was a survivor, but the scars were running too deep. Her soul was bleeding out. This wasn't Camp Half Blood. She wasn't a camper. She didn't survive two wars and live happily ever after.

There was only one rule she lived by now.

And she broke it the minute she left the others.

Don't leave Miranda alone.

And guess where she was?

Something snapped, echoing in the air. She barely looked up. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't anything.

Towering over her was an empousa, a girl her she with fraying blond hair, red tired eyes, mismatching legs. And she held a spear pointed right over Miranda.

Miranda looked up at her, looking past the fangs and the pale skin. She saw the monsters own tears, the demon's regrets and pains.

"When the gods faded so did Tartatrus."

Miranda wasn't sure which of them said it. But both the demigod and the monster knew it. The comment hung in the air.

There was no more Tartatrus. No more rebirth for monsters. no more second lives. The monsters, who had fought with the demigods, twisted horrific tales, born enemies, and they were facing the same problems as demigods.

The empousa's hand was shaking tears welding in her glass eyes.

"We aren't any different." Miranda whispered.

The empousa hissed, a tear stopped down her cheek. Miranda wondered how many of her sisters, her family was gone. The girl barely looked older than her, but she had decades of terrible acts, horrible fights, bloody wars on her hands.

Desperation creased her features, a need for something more. A satisfaction, like grasping at straws and wishing for gold. Like trying to play back to a time that's forever gone.

Like that Cyclops that attacked on the red trail to Survivor City.

"No," The empousa's voice was a cracked hiss, like crinkling sandpaper. "We are not the same, demigod."

The empousa raised her spear higher, a cold breeze flung between them, wedding icy fingers against Miranda's neck. She didn't move, she didn't feel, she didn't even care.

"We won't give up, demigod."

The empousa, however broken, however much she was falling apart, mourning the lost of her family, didn't hesitate.

She brought the spear down with all her might.